OKLAHOMA CITY — In the final seconds, Stephen Curry had Thunder big man Serge Ibaka in his path. Curry crossed over, faked a three, then dribbled into the paint. The 6-foot-10 forward shadowed Curry, smothered him.

For most of the series, Oklahoma City frustrated Curry and the Warriors this way. The long arms and athletic build of the Thunder had proved a deterrent like no other.

But the game was in the balance. Pride was at stake. The validity of this two-year run was on the line. And Curry refused to be denied.

He powered through the contact, lofted a runner over Ibaka’s swipe and high off the backboard, banking it in off the glass. Ball game.

Next thing you know, Curry was holding up seven fingers to the crowd. The Warriors won 108-101, forcing a Game 7 on Monday at Oracle. A winner-take-all conclusion to these Western Conference Finals.

“We’ve got a lot of belief and heart, and we’ve given ourselves a chance to win this series,” Curry said after totaling 31 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists. “That’s all we could ask for. The way we played tonight shows who we are. We have one more opportunity to impose our will in this series, and that’s what we want to do.”

That last play was a metaphor for the series. The dagger in the game serves as the moral of the story — the Warriors’ success is connected to their resilience.

The saying goes: never underestimate the heart of a champion. Then the heart of the Warriors will be heard to ever underestimate again.

The defending NBA champions, the team that broke a coveted record with 73 wins in the regular season, bolstered their legend with a performance for the ages. They erased Oklahoma City’s 3-1 lead and repelled the shots being taken at their throne.

The Warriors were left for dead. They ran into kryptonite in Oklahoma City, a big and athletic team featuring two superstars and peaking at the right time. They looked scared, unrecognizable at times.

But the Warriors stared down the same beast that previously overwhelmed them, in the same den that rattled them to the core, and they responded with a resolve that validates their pedigree.

The brink of elimination revealed a new level of resolve. The Warriors pulled off the improbable, winning at a place they were twice walloped. And they did it in a manner that was unbelievable.

Klay Thompson set a playoff record with 11 3-pointers, shooting the Warriors through every Thunder run and every moment of doubt. He knocked down five in the fourth quarter, where he scored 19 of his 41 points.

Andre Iguodala was stellar defensively down the stretch, taking turns locking down Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook down the stretch. And Curry, who struggled to find his rhythm in most of the three games in this building, scored eight points in the final four minutes, looking every bit like the NBA’s best closer.

“When you have guys that can shoot like those two can,” Andrew Bogut said, “you’re not going to hold those guys the whole game. They kept us in the game and when it came down to it, Steph finished it off.”

The Warriors are going home for Game 7 because they answered the bell. Their hopes for repeating are still alive because they “refused to go out like that.”

No matter what happens on Monday — and in NBA history, home teams are 100-24 in Game 7s — the Warriors have snatched a bit of respect. Even their detractors, who touted the Thunder as the purer team with greater stars, have to admire the Warriors’ resolve.

In the first half, it looked like the Warriors would get run over again. The Thunder made shots, the crowd screamed like a bear was coming, and the Warriors shook at the knees.

The Warriors’ deficit got as high as 13, but Thompson answered with back-to-back 3-pointers to cut the lead to seven. Another Thompson 3-pointer at the 2:09 mark cut the Thunder lead to 44-40. The Warriors had finally said enough.

Enough with getting run out of the gym.

Enough with not fighting back.

Enough with going out like chumps instead of champs.

“We felt good. We were only down five,” Thompson said. “And we could have been down 10 or 15. … We realized, ‘Look, we’ve got a chance to win this game, especially down the stretch.”

Thompson opened the second half with two more threes. Just like that, the Warriors were leading. It didn’t last long, but the message was loud enough. The Warriors brought some fight with them this time.

By the fourth quarter, the Warriors were back in familiar territory, victory dangled before their noses.

They were no longer taking punches, but giving them. They stopped withstanding the pressure and started applying it themselves.

And when up against championship heart, it was Oklahoma City that wilted.

“We were down but we are not out,” Draymond Green said. “If we want to win this, it is going to be a battle. This was a war. We continued to fight.”